3rd Quarter Blogs: Blog #2

In her piece, Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982), Maya Lin attempts to unify the fallen in the Vietnam War and solidify their memory into stone in order to commemorate and honor those that were lost. She uses black stone as her primary building material, therefore creating a strong, enduring backdrop, etches the names of all 52,000 service members that fell in the war, thus building a cohesive unit, and slopes the memorial downwards, so that people can see themselves in the stone as they read the names and implying a sense of continuity. Her tone is of honor and reverence for those who died in the service of our country, and her purpose is to try to have the people connect to these names, perhaps even see pieces of themselves within the memorial. Her audience is the entire world because anyone has access to the memorial, and she tries to convey the importance of creating an everlasting memory of those we lost, and not let them fade into obscurity.



1. I visited the Vietnam Memorial before I even knew anything about it. However, the first thing I remember is being awestruck and horrified by the sheer number of names. It immediately got me thinking about these fallen service members, which I assume was a large part of Lin's purpose, and I started to envision their lives. I would take a random name off the wall and try to imagine what kind of life they led. I also couldn't help but notice my reflection in the stone and I saw my duty to carry on the lives of those that have fallen. It isn't enough to simply have a memorial and continue onwards. Rather, memory is a continuing thing and we can't let these names just become names. The fact that it slopes downwards also contributes to this feeling because it seems like the memorial doesn't end, which also shows that you can't just forget about the memorial once seeing it. We have a responsibility to carry the people engraved in the memorial with us. I also think that having the names carved in the stone also humanizes it because we identify with people. It's not just blank, it has life in it. In fact, it has 52,000 lives etched in it.

2. This memorial sends several messages. The first is the destructive nature of war. The memorial is very difficult to miss, and since it stands out, it shows the power of war in harming and destroying lives. The artist is definitely anti-war and adding all the names to the memorial makes this even more real because it shows that war took 52,000 souls away. The artist has tremendous reverence towards the fallen, especially since middle initials are included, which shows an incredible attention to detail. The viewers are supposed to feel something after seeing this memorial, particularly after seeing themselves in the stone as one with the names. It implies that subsequent generations must honor their memory and ensure that nothing like this happens again.